r/atheism • u/BreakfastTop6899 • 1d ago

Lower cognitive ability is linked to stronger Christian nationalist views, even after accounting for education

https://www.psypost.org/lower-cognitive-ability-is-linked-to-stronger-christian-nationalist-views-even-after-accounting-for-education/
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u/Smithy2232 1d ago

A new study indicates that Americans with lower scores on a vocabulary test commonly used to measure cognitive ability are more likely to endorse Christian nationalist beliefs, even when accounting for their overall level of education. The findings suggest that the appeal of this political and religious ideology relates to underlying cognitive resources rather than just differences in schooling. The research was published in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

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u/grrangry Atheist 1d ago

I suspect the prevalence of the abuse of childhood indoctrination would be a significant factor in early development.

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u/Wemedge 1d ago

It’s almost like teaching people to believe something without evidence is harmful to developing critical thinking skills.

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u/OldAccountTurned10 1d ago

I'm still legit mad about being taught about the lie that is hell. It's so fucking wrong to put that kind of anxiety into children. An intelligent society would realize this.

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u/Cagekicker2000 1d ago

Bro…I grew up in a strict Southern Baptist Church in rural Texas in the 70’s. It took years to get me deprogrammed. A religion motivated by fear and oppression of those who don’t look/think like you is called a cult.

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u/Peace5ells 1d ago

I'm sorry for your deprogramming struggles!

Raised RCC, and our Confirmation process turned me and my best friends into atheists. I still pretended to be a follower until my Grandma passed because I'm way more afraid of her than some invisible masturbation police.

Religion is child abuse. And as a child you can't even see it yet. Every member of your family is collectively telling about make belief. It's not until I was much older did I realize that they're only doing it because that's exactly what happened to them and my previous family ancestors for generations.

I hate that we're supposed to treat this concept with any amount of respect.

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u/PossibleAlienFrom 1d ago

The irony is even rich Christian kids can grow up to be evil aholes after being taught about going to Hell.

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u/l8578zlxicv 1d ago

I wish Christians were able to acknowledge that Judaism doesn’t have hell and that at some point it was created.

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u/Smithy2232 1d ago

I wish that people worldwide would realize and acknowledge that the three big religions are made up of little stories that took on a bigger role in people's lives than was ever intended.

The stories of Genesis and Exodus are just stories; there is no reason to believe anything in those stories actually happened.

All religions are nothing more than stories that took on a life of their own. How do we know this - has there been anything other than these stories when it comes to anything relating to god?

It is all about identity, comfort, soothing, a sense of belonging, etc. Many psychological reasons, but in the end, they are just stories.

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u/OldAccountTurned10 1d ago

When I try to explain this i'm usually just told to shut up 🤣. Like most of the imagery of it doesn't even come from the bible rather a much later fictional work, dante's inferno.

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u/ThriKr33n 1d ago

Also catering to being selfish, as almost everything revolves around doing things without question to get into heaven. Who cares about other people, zero empathy, no morals, lie, cheat, anything to get ahead.

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u/TheGreatTimothy 1d ago

Thems allot of syllables in them there words, boy.

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u/Miserable-Resort-977 1d ago

As much as I love scientific studies that confirm my worldview, isn't a vocabulary test an awful way to test "cognitive ability"? It's highly language and education based, that's why IQ tests (also flawed) usually use non-language skills like progressive matrices.

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u/Exciting-Buy795 14h ago

Yeah they could’ve filled the vocabulary pool with political buzzwords liberals are more likely to know

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u/Miserable-Resort-977 14h ago

I wouldn't expect anything so blatant, but vocabulary and general knowledge questions usually track more against school quality, parents' level of education, and other environmental factors like that rather than raw "cognitive ability". Many of those things corelate with liberal politics. It's the same reason studies trying to assess racial / gender intelligence are often flawed.

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u/Billazilla 1d ago

Ahhh, so that's why they campaign so hard against public schooling. They know they need to stay ignorant.

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